May I have your attention, please? The following is not the real Jeff Fox review If you think it's your fault every time you get stung by a bee You might be a beekeeper If when robbing is going on at your house, but you don't call the police Well, you might be a beekeeper. If you have enough beeswax lip balm to last your family for 300 years, you might be a beekeeper. Welcome, welcome to Be Love Beekeeping presented
by our great friends over at Man Lake. Today's episode is going to be completely dedicated to apotherapy or the use of honeybee products for medicinal or health benefits. Our guest is Ross Conrad who's a New England beekeeper and extremely knowledgeable on the topic. This is a longer discussion than usual so we're going to jump right in after we give a quick but hearty thank you to V2B Health for their support of this podcast.
Vita's Varroa Control Ranger products includes Apistan, Apigard, and now Varroxan, Extended Release Oxalic Acid Strips. Thanks guys. Now, all things Apotherapy. We have with us today Ross Conrad, coming to us all the way from Vermont. And Ross, good morning. How are you? Good morning, Eric. Doing well, thank you. It is great that we could finally connect. And just to let our listeners know, we're going to be talking about a cool subject today, which is apotherapy, something
that you know a lot of. But first, let's find out who Ross is and what are you doing in Vermont and what's beekeeping like there. So jump right in anywhere. I started beekeeping by working with some local commercial beekeepers, Bill and Charlie Meraz. And Charlie Mraz was a world -famous beekeeper. Between the two of them, they were father and son. They had over 100 years of beekeeping
experience. That's how I got my education. And Charlie Mraz was known as the father of apotherapy, who first actually brought the use of bee products and bee venom to the United States and really pushed hard to try to get the medical establishment interested in... the benefits of bee venom therapy and apitherapy in general. Beekeeping in Vermont is great. I'm in the Champlain Valley, which is the best place to keep bees in all of New
England. Been a little bit more challenging of reaching years, but haven't given up and keep working at it. Hopefully beating the odds. Good. And pretty tough. I don't know if you've heard recently this past nine months had one of the biggest guy -offs they're estimating. well over a million colonies of bees died just in the last nine months here in the United States. Yeah, we have talked all about it on this podcast, had Chris Hyatt on a couple of episodes ago to
give us a good explanation. And we're waiting like everybody else to see what the cause is. Nobody really knows yet. Well, it's interesting for me, this winter had really mixed results. I had some bee yards I've lost really high, you know, 46, 50. 100 % of my bees died and other bee yards, well, I lost none or had less than
10 % loss. And so it strikes me that, you know, if it was something that beekeepers were doing or myself, you know, because they treat all my hides the same, I managed them all the same. So if it was something that I was doing wrong or not doing, then I would expect to see more consistent losses in all my bee yards. But the fact that some of them get hit hard and some of them don't at all tells me that it's something
outside the bee yard that's affecting them. And do you have any speculation on what that might be? Oh, of course. Everyone's got speculation. But we're doing a sweepstakes here. Whoever gets it right wins. So go ahead and put your two cents in. Well, unfortunately, I believe it probably if not partially, if not wholly responsible is the pesticides and the inadequate regulation of pesticides that goes on in the United States,
especially. And now that they're also finding that a lot of the forever chemicals, the PFAS and stuff are in the pesticides as well. Yeah. And the bees are being exposed and we know it harms them. The neonics are a big problem because they're systemic and you can't prevent the bees from being exposed and be farmers are using them even when they don't even have a pest problem. I got a feeling that that's it. But, you know, I'm holding back and waiting for the results.
I know there's over a dozen researchers, all taking samples and looking into this to try to figure out what's going on. So I'll be looking forward to seeing the results. Yeah, me too. And I love that you brought all of that up about the chemicals and the forever chemicals. And whether that explains this year's particular die off or not, it's got to be a long term problem. And I'm on board with you. We need to do something about it. This episode is going to come out either
late March or early April of 2025. What's it like in spring where you are as far as how you take care of your bees? Do they need a lot of food or what's going on right now? Well, no, if I do everything right in fall, I don't have to do a whole lot in the spring. But there's often, you know, a hive here or there that for some reason have used more honey than I anticipated or expected. And so they might eat some feeding. The best feed for a bee, there's honey in the
comb. So I will take honey. The first thing I
do is take honey from Hodgson. have died over the winter and if as long as they haven't died from diseases contagious I'll use that honey to feed my bees rather than feed them sugar syrup or high fructose corn syrup or god forbid or whatever because that's just going to make them healthier and so mostly it's just nowadays trying to guess when spring is the weather patterns are shifting and changing or the last two years I've gotten into my bees way earlier than ever
before usually it was toward the end of April now it's Last couple years, it's been the beginning of April, first, second leak of April, I've gotten into them. We'll see what happens this year. I appreciate all of that info and let's jump right into it. I want to learn more about apitherapy. You mentioned that you were mentored by someone that was really into this. Is that how you got
into it or did you learn in other ways? No, no, that was my exposure through Charlie Maraz and going to some of the meetings of the American Apotherapy Society, which she was a founding member of, and just learning of it or learning about it. Having him teach me how to do it, reading his book on it, appreciating of all the gifts the bees provide, you know, that everything about a beehive is so healing, not just for the environment, but for humans as well. Literally everything.
Honey, the propolis, which is the tree resins the bees gather and create a The most powerful antimicrobial substance found in nature, pollen, royal jelly, and the bee venom, even the beeswax, everything has uses for healing and health. And so if you have access to a beehive, you got access to a cornucopia of healing and healthy materials and products that are affordable and will remain affordable because the pharmaceutical companies can't patent them and control their distribution
and charge a ton of money for it. Anyone with a beehive can have access to these things. Unfortunately, that's part of the reason why there hasn't been, until more recent years, a huge amount of research into the effects of the bee products and their health healing properties, because there's just not a lot of money in it that can be controlled. For the masses, I think that's just a great inexpensive, accessible source of health and healing products.
And that's going to be especially important, I think, as we go forward here in the future. The way things seem to be going, we keep getting more and more chaotic weather, which is creating
destabilization in society. And if for some reason you don't have access to health care when you need it, but you have access to a beehive, you could be saving your life or the life of loved ones or even just friends, neighbors, people who need help if you have access to a beehive and you're aware of what the properties of the bee products are. Let's talk about some of these things individually. Let's start with propolis. We beekeepers know what it is. It can go anywhere
from sticky to crunchy. What is the best way to harvest it, and what ways do you suggest that we use it, and for what? The best way to harvest it, it depends, you know. It depends. There's always more than one approach. Because propolis acts as an extension of the honey bee's immune system, I purposely do not harvest propolis from
my hives intentionally. which would be to put a some kind of a propolis trap in the hive something that is has holes in it is rough surface or something and and allows air or light through maybe you put it up and replace the inner cover with it and the bees will because they use propolis as a building material as well as a way to sterilize the inside of the hive they will feel those holes or that rough surface with propolis typically people will use some kind of a plastic or nylon
material that's easy to twist and bend after it's been frozen because propolis as you mentioned very sticky when it's warm but get hard and brittle when it's cold so you would take that propolis trap after it's been filled with propolis put it in the freezer let it get hard the propolis get hard and brittle and then you take it out of freezer and just kind of tweak the bend the plastic or the mesh or whatever you use and the propolis quacks and breaks off and then you can
reuse the trap. But myself, I only harvest the propolis that I come across in chunks when I'm harvesting my honey. So on the frames or in the supers there's often propolis and I will harvest that because I'm not really looking to take the propolis from the bees. They need it to be as healthy as possible and that's possibly part of the problem. I mean, there's a lot of factors going into the current state of health of the
bees and why they're suffering so much. And one of them is that over the years beekeepers bred bees for those that didn't produce a lot of propolis because it's bee glue, you know, is one of the things the beekeepers call it as a nickname for it because it glues everything together and makes it hard to manipulate the frames and take things apart. And so beekeepers have preferred bees
over the years that didn't. produce much propolis, but now we've been learning thanks to Mala Spivak and her work, a lot of the work that was done at the University of Minnesota, propolis is really important for healthy bees and it's really important for healthy people in that regard. And that's why I do collect it and then I'll use it and make, usually I'll make a tincture out of it, but you can also find it ground up in capsules or you can just use it straight raw. grape of
sore throat. How do you tincture it? What's your recipe for a tincture? I don't know if you're familiar with herbalism and stuff. Most herbalists will use like 80 proof alcohol, you know, like vodka or something to soak their herbs in and remove the medicinal properties. But the propolis, because the majority of it are these tree resins that are very dense, 80 proof alcohol, just 40 % alcohol, is not enough. to dissolve it. You actually need a minimum of 70 % alcohol, or 130,
140 proof. If I do it, I just get the pure grain alcohol, 95, 100 % alcohol, and I use that, and I prefer organic, so I avoid any chemical contaminants that might get into it. And that, I find, makes the best propolis tincture. X amount of propolis, put it in a pint of this alcohol, let it sit for a couple of months. How do you do it? Yeah, that's basically it. I'll fill up the jar most of the way with propolis and then pour in the alcohol and, you know, let it sit for a minimum
of two weeks, shake it once a day. And by the end of that, all the propolis is pretty much dissolved. There'll be some gunk along, I find, along the bottom, which is usually the beeswax. other stuff that's in the propolis that the bees use when they create the propolis, and then you can pull off the propolis -infused alcohol. That's one way. Other people, there's other ways of
making it. There's a water, you know, non -alcohol way of doing it, because some people have issues with alcohol or it's drawing to the skin or whatever. But I think, personally, I think the alcohol makes the best tincture, gets the most of the material out of the propolis and into the tincture. and it preserves it the best. So what do you use it for personally? And I know we can't speak as medical advice here, we'll get in trouble,
but what does Ross use it for? I find when I have a sore throat, really great for just knocking it right out. I'll put a dropper full, coat my throat before I go to bed at night and again in the morning and usually within a couple days, sore throat's gone. Very good for external, any kind of external infections and things, wounds.
Or quite frankly, Because I tend to be one that as much as I appreciate the modern medical system, especially when it comes to physical things, I find that they have a real challenge when it comes to any degenerative diseases. They haven't
really figured that stuff out. And so I'll turn to a lot of I might do what the doctor recommends, but I'll also do my own more natural supplements and food products in herbal fox and populous whenever I'm dealing with a any kind of viral infection, bacterial infection, or anything like that, fungal. I will often take populous as part of the protocol. Let me just take a minute here
to thank our presenting sponsor, Man Lake. One of the things I love about Man Lake is their commitment to education because that commitment shows how much they want you to be successful at beekeeping. One great resource is their mobile app. You know, it's not just for shopping. It's packed full of all kinds of helpful information, including videos, articles, plus a plant identification feature designed to help beekeepers identify and plant bee healthy plants for their area.
It's free, so download the Man Lake app today. And speaking of shopping, don't forget your discount code MLBlove10. It's in the show notes. For $10 off your first $100 Now, back to the guest. Numbing areas. In fact, because our glaciers are melting at such a rapid pace, there was a recent discovery of a, they called him the Ice Man, some guy that had died hundreds of years ago, frozen in ice, finally got uncovered as the glaciers receded. And when they studied his body, they found dental
problems. and his teeth and he had stuffed populace and beeswax in the cavities to fill the areas that had opened up in his teeth. Populace had been used as kind of a dental approach to helping deal with dental issues. Populace has been used for a long, long time. There has been studies that recommend more modern studies that indicate that it could be beneficial even today. So internally or topically it sounds like you can use it. Yep.
Yeah, it's very rare for anyone to have an allergic reaction to propolis, but if you do, usually it's just, you know, you have some skin reaction and you just cut back the propolis and the skin clears up. It's pretty darn safe, as far as I know. Let's jump around. Tell me more about royal jelly and how people use it. Well, royal jelly is kind of a milking substance that the bees produce in glands in their bodies that they feed to all the young bees when they're first hatched
from the egg. All the larva gets royal jelly for the first three days or so and then after that the worker bees the female worker bees and the drone the male drones they get switched over to a mix of the royal jelly with some honey and pollen mixed in but the queen bee she only gets royal jelly fed to her her whole life. which is tend to be why they call it royal jelly. Unfortunately, to get royal jelly, you have to remove the queen from the hive. So it's pretty stressful on a
colony to produce royal jelly. It's also basically
very labor intensive. This is why most if pretty much not all of the royal jelly available on the market comes from China, because that's the only place where they can basically pay people hardly anything to produce this royal jelly because basically what happens is in each queen cell that the bee when you remove the queen from the hive the bees start building new queen cells to start raising new queens to try to replace her and they deposit in a glob of royal jelly
in every one of those wax cells to feed the developing larvae And then before that wax cell gets capped for the larva to go through its pupation to develop into a fully mature queen bee, you have to go in with like usually they use a little suction device to suck up all those little globs of royal jelly. So it's very, very labor intensive and kind of stressful and hard on the bees. But it does have apparently a lot of pretty powerful
medicinal benefits. One of the primary differences between a worker bee that can live for maybe five, six, eight weeks during the summer at best, and a queen bee that typically should be able to live for five years. That diet makes the difference, and this is powerful bee food. It comes from the bee's body. It's got all kinds of bee hormones and enzymes and lots of bee vitamins and protein and has its own antiviral, antifungal properties.
Way back in the older days in Asia, the emperors were given royal jelly because it was believed, after observing the queen bees in the high, that it would help the emperor to not only live long but be sexually virile and vibrant in his old age to help keep the genetic family line going. Personally, I don't use raw or jelly a whole lot just because it is so stressful to the beehives. All right, we're going in no particular order. I'll give you a heads up, Ross, though I want
to save bee venom for last. That's something I'm super interested in. Let's talk about pollen next. Pollen is considered a superfood because it's so packed with vitamins and protein and minerals. The pollen that the plants produce in the area around the hive, the bees gather it up as they fly through the air to actually build up a static electric charge on their bodies so the pollen grains will stick to them kind of like a balloon sticking to the wall after
you rub it on your hair. And the bees will, they actually have kind of the comb -like hairs on their legs that they can use to groom themselves and comb that pollen into a little ball that they carry on their hind legs. back to the hive and that is the primary source for all their fats, protein, vitamins, and minerals. They actually will ferment that pollen by adding a little bit
of nectar or honey to it. In the honey or nectar is this beneficial bacteria and when they add it to the pollen it mixes with the pollen will cause the pollen to ferment after it's been placed in the cells of storage. And that's the long -term storage because pollen is actually highly degradable. It's perishable. And so the bees know that you ferment it as a way of storing it for long -term use, like, for example, during the winter, and they have no access to the pollen
outside. And for people to use, there are various, quote, pollen traps that beekeepers can get, put in a hive, collect some pollen. Would you tell us two things? One, How do people make sure they're being careful not to collect too much pollen so that it's hurting the colony? And then two, how do people use pollen and what for? So yeah, that's a good point. You know, if you take too much pollen from the high that's going to harm them, because that's their primary source
of food for the young. They primarily use pollen to feed and raise the young dees. And when you have a high that's... you know could be raising one over a thousand new bees every day during the peak of the summer. That's a lot of pollen that gets used. How do we know that we're not taking too much? Should we put a pollen trap in maybe one day a week and take it out or what would be safe? Yeah something like that you know one or two three days at the most but then take
it out so they get some in. Sometimes the bees
figure it out on their own. I've seen bees that you had a pollen trap on the hive and then the bees started gathering smaller pellets of pollen on their legs that they could slip through the trap and get it in because the way the pollen trap works basically it creates an opening that's so small at the entrance to the hive the bees kind of have to squeeze through it to get in and it knocks the pollen off their hind legs and it falls through a screen where you can collect
it in a tray and the bees have learned to sometimes gather just enough so they can squeeze through and still get the pollen into the hive. With any other openings than where the pollen trap is, they'll use that opening to get the pollen into the hive. If the bees aren't able to figure it out, the beekeeper needs to definitely assist them and make sure that the trap isn't on full time and that it's taken off with enough guns and with enough space and period of time to allow
the bees to bring in. the food that they're going to need to feed their young and keep developing the colony through the season as they need to. Yeah, that is super important. OK, health wise, what do you use it for? Well, it's just it's a super food. It's got actually better, higher quality protein, some pollens, than beef, quite
literally. So it is a pretty powerful. It kind of depends though, you got to remember pollen, it's being gathered from the flowers in the area, so much of the quality of the pollen is going to depend on where the bees have been foraging and what flowers they've been visiting. But basically, it's just powerful nutrition. Any kind of issues you have with nutritional deficiency, the resource of the problem, the pollen has the potential to help alleviate that because it is such a powerful
nutrient dense food. Can it help with allergies like honey can? Interestingly enough, a lot of people have found that it does. It's based on this basic idea that immunization shots are based on where you get exposed to something and if it doesn't kill you, right, then your body gives up an immunity to it. And so that's the idea when it comes to pollen. A lot of times, you know, beekeepers will, you know, or you hear that it's raw honey that you should eat. But
that's just a way to sell more honey. The reality is raw honey is not filtered or heated. So it's still going to have the pollen in it. A little bit of pollen from the flowers that the bees gather, the nectar from to create the honey. There's going to be some pollen that gets in
there. And that is if you have an allergy to that pollen, but you consume very small amounts of it, it can actually help your body to build up immunity so you don't get those kind of hay fever symptoms as often people experience in spring or fall. It's not really the raw honey that's doing it, it's the pollen. And so the best perhaps treatment, if you will, or approach, you'd want to get pollen from the plants that
you are allergic to. Whether it's goldenrod or... you know dandelions or whatever and then there is a protocol that's been established through the American Apotherapy Society where you take you know one half of one of those little pollen balls that has been collected from the bees that you can buy in like health food stores or whatever and and you eat that one day and then the next day as long as you're not getting a bad reaction or something maybe you'll eat a whole one whole
pollen ball and then the next day after that you double it so then you have two and then the next day you have four, and then the next day eight, and then 16, and then maybe a quarter teaspoon, and half a teaspoon, and a full teaspoon. And usually after that, you know, 10 or 14 days of taking the pollen like that, people find they can, they don't have the kind of reactions that
they normally would have. So the first thing that got me interested in beekeeping years ago was for this purpose for seasonal allergies and I had read a lot about it and I didn't know much but just what I had read and the advice was have some kind of a an amount that you take every day a teaspoon or whatever of raw honey from your area. So I went out, bought some raw honey from a beekeeper that's about 150 miles away from where I live, but relatively similar terrain
and vegetation and that kind of stuff. Now, I don't know if that beekeeper filtered their honey or not. All I know is I set up my own protocol. I took a little honey every day for months. Here came spring and I was just as bad as usual and I just said okay. Well, this doesn't work until I read that this really is a hyper local kind of thing and Since I have had my own beehives on my own property and I do that and my allergies
are Significantly better now. They're not gone, but they are way way better than they used to be Well, that's an interesting experience because personally, I'm not so sure it needs to be that hyperlocal. In theory, if the honey is gathered, where the nectar is gathered to make the honey, from flowers that you have allergies to, it should work. Whether those flowers are in your backyard or 150, 350 miles away in the general area or region. And I don't know if they were the same
flowers or if that honey was being sifted. For some reason, it didn't work for me. Sure. That's part of it. And that's part of the problem in beekeeping and in the marketplace. There is little to no policing of label claims. So people can, there's no definition from the government on what raw honey actually is. And I know for a fact, there are beekeepers out there that heat their honey and they filter it and they put raw on the label. And no one questions it or consumers
don't know the difference. To me, an egg that is soft -boiled is not raw. It's been exposed to heat. It's no longer raw. It's not hard -boiled. It's not fully cooked. But it's not raw. And to me, the same thing with honey. beekeepers, they only heat it to 120 degrees or only 160 degrees for a short near period of time or whatever. To me, that's not real honey. Real honey is period no heat added other than worse than room temperature basically or high temperature. You're preaching
to the choir here. I couldn't agree with you more. And there's also the term organic, which I see a lot of people put on their honey. And I know where their hives are, and there's no way they can guarantee that that's organic. Well, that that's interesting, because, you know, organic
is a federally regulated term. And you're not legally, you're not supposed to put organic and call your honey organic unless you need specific criteria and have been inspected by a third party to confirm the organic nature of your operation. And so if you actually are seeing that, you can report that to the regional organic certifier who will correct that inappropriate marketing and labeling. And I just think it's a matter of not knowing and understanding that. I mean,
go to your local farmers market. Chances are you're going to see a beekeeper that's done that. And they just don't know any better. I don't think they're trying to be colluding in some big scheme or something or other. What else can you tell us about honey besides allergies? Internally, topically, what should we use honey for? Oh, my gosh. What do you not use honey for? Yeah, exactly. The first aid kit in a jar. Quite literally. Let's talk about burns and cuts, things like
that. Yeah. Well, you see, honey is a unique substance, even though there are people now trying because the honey bees are dying. That's large numbers every year. People are worried. And so there's people that have started creating synthetic honey, not real honey, but it's honey like the honey is unique in that it is, first of all. you know, it's got a pH level because of the sugars that inhibits the growth of bacteria and
things. I mean, we've been using sugar to preserve jams and jellies, for example, for eons, right? But honey goes much farther than that because honey is hygroscopic. That means the bees have removed so much moisture from that honey, so it's down to usually below 18 % moisture content that the honey wants to Draw moisture to itself.
So actually if you leave a jar of honey with the lid off just on your kitchen table For a week or two it can draw enough humidity out of the air to significantly raise the moisture level of the honey in that jar but when honey is fully ripened by bees with a moisture level below about 18 % then nothing harmful to humans can grow in that honey because What happens is that honey,
it wants to attract moisture to itself. So any bacteria, for example, that gets into that honey, the honey will suck the moisture out of it and destroy it and kill it, desiccate it. Honey also, if it's raw honey and hasn't been heated, it contains still the enzymes that the bees put into that honey when they created it. Heat destroys
enzymes. if it hasn't been heated and it's raw, one of the enzymes is glucose oxidase, which when that breaks down on your skin, forms the number of compounds, including hydrogen peroxide. So if you have a cut or a wound and you put honey on it, it will release the small amounts of hydrogen peroxide continually as it breaks down, so it's sterilizing the the wound. It's sucking the moisture out of any bacteria it comes in contact with, and it's just amazing really for healing of exterior
wounds. I know for myself, whenever I get a cut or something and I don't really take care of it properly and start to get reddened and infected, I put a little bob of raw honey on it at night before I go to bed and cover it with a band -aid or a piece of gauze or something. And when I wake up in the morning, when I take that band -aid or gauze off, every time I've done it, the red is gone. It's gotten rid of the infection.
And in fact, it's so powerful for healing that in most countries, not so much here in the United States, but like I said, we're all about money here. You can't patent natural things like honey. But in most countries, the preferred healing modality for burns, as you had mentioned, is honey. It just is superior to the silver dying ointment or whatever it is that most hospitals
you hear in the US use. Because not only does it prevent the site from getting infected, but it keeps the wound moist and it actually feeds the cells so they can grow back faster. And it's a lot more humane, quite frankly. The modern day version of the silver impregnated ointment that they typically put on burn victims here in the US it has to be scraped off each day and reapplied and that's an incredibly painful process.
With honey you put it on and it just absorbs in and breaks down naturally there's no scraping off the next day you simply lift up the the wound dressing and you apply the new honey and you cover it back up. It works so much better also because they find that when treated with honey the typical discoloration of the skin that occurs with burn victims is much less than in many cases, there is no discoloration. It just heals so much
better. It's just astounding. It really is. But unfortunately, it's not a big moneymaker, which is why it's not really promoted and used as much as it really should be in my view. Is there such a thing as medical grade honey? Or can I take honey right out of my hive and put it on a burn. Well, there is medical -grade honey. Because of all the research that was being done and the
experience in other countries here in the U .S., the Food and Drug Administration finally, after many years, approved one certain type of honey to be used. It's called Medihoney. And you can get it now in hospitals, if they have it. You probably have to ask for it. But it is from the manuka plant. which is primarily in New Zealand and Australia, and it's been, you know, highly purified and elediated to kill any germs or viruses. It's been treated to be medically acceptable.
But as you kind of pointed out, really, any honey that is raw, unheated and unfiltered will work just about as well. It doesn't have to be this $35 an ounce honey that the medical establishment uses. Your honey from your hive will work quite well as well. It may not work as perfect, but it will work most likely adequately and sufficiently for your use. Thank you. Great explanation. Okay, we've talked about using honey topically. How about internally? What kinds of things can it
help us with? Well, one of the reasons why this Medi honey was approved is because this manuka honey actually in studies was the most effective at killing the bacteria that causes ulcers and So that's why it got accepted. But so yeah, there's a bunch of different uses It can help with sleep issues. It can help with weight issues. It helps really great with sore throats In fact one study that compared it to over -the -counter cough syrups, for example with kids The kids liked
the honey better. It was less expensive and it worked better than the over the counter stuff. So yeah, there's all kinds, all kinds of, I mean, I can't get into all the stuff that really the American Apothecary Society will be the place to go. If you or your listeners wanted to learn more, they're just a clearing house for information on the use of honeybee products for healing and health. AAS, you can find them online, really
cheap to become a member. And if you become a member, you get access to their international list of apotherapists all over the world. People who are using the products to help promote healing and health. You can get help. Like, for example, if you wanted to get bee stings, for example, you could find sources for bees. You could find maybe people that will apply the bee stings for you, that type of thing. We'll put a link to their website in the show notes so that people
can find it easily. All right. Lastly, since you just brought up bee stings, Let's talk venom. What can you get us started on with bee venom? Well, that's the business end of the honeybee, right? Yep, bees use the venom to try to discourage predators. When a bee stings you, it actually unlike all the other stinging insects, the honeybee will die. The honeybee stinger is barbed like
an arrow and because your skin is stretchy. If you get stung by a bee, that stinger that tends to get caught in your skin, the bee will pull so hard to try to remove the stinger, it'll rip out its entrails, and within a fairly short period of time, it will die. So it's not in the honeybee's interest to go around stinging people for no reason, right? First of all, people need to know they're only going to sting if they feel threatened.
If you are really close to the hive or disturbing their hive, if you are swatting at them or something, it may feel personally like you're trying to, and while you step on them or something, then they'll sting you. But normally, honey bees, they're really gentle creatures. They're not looking for problems and trouble, and they're not going to bother people. What are people using bee venom for? Primarily for things like rheumatoid diseases, like arthritis. and for multiple sclerosis.
It can help with shingles, things like that. All these rheumatoid -type diseases seem to be very effective. And there's some certain types of cancers that have been helped with B -venom. This is all kind of experimental, if you will. There's no standard protocols that are approved. And all these products, they're natural products. Like I said, they're not patented or anything. Mostly what they all do is they're about building up the body's immune system so the body can heal
itself. I think any physician or health practitioner, if they're honest, they'll tell you they don't heal people. They try to create the environment where the body can then do the healing that it needs to do to deal with the situation. And that's what apotherapy is about, building up the body's immune response so it can start to heal itself. and help the body get to heal. Is it the body that does the healing, not the treatment real
ultimately, right? You just want to create the environment for the body to be able to do that, what it needs to do. I saw recently an article from, I forget which country in Europe, where they had set up a thing where people were breathing hive air. They had like a tube that went into the hive and a little face mask on the other end and you could sit there and just breathe hive air. Have you ever heard of that? Oh yeah,
yeah this is a kind of a newer thing. There are even like beds that are above the hive and then all the air feeds into this little room or kind of that you you crawl into and you can sleep there and get exposed to the the smell of the hive basically. And you know, it's got the aromatic compounds from the propolis. And primarily, it's probably the biggest part of it. And it can apparently help with certain things in certain conditions. In getting back to the bee venom, if I may. Yes,
please. I just want to explain a little bit about how it seems to work. When you get stung with a bee, you know, it kind of hurts. That always is the case. So typically, what you want to do... If you're getting bee stings for therapeutic purposes, you want to put some ice or something frozen on the area that you're going to sting ahead of time so that it kind of numbs the area, and that way the bee sting itself doesn't hurt
as much. And then when you do get stung, of course, all the blood rushes to the area, which is why often you get swelling. Like with any treatment, any kind of medical treatment, there's side effects with bee stings. swelling, itchy redness, might be sore and painful, that type of thing. And the reason you get the swelling, of course, is because all the blood is rushing to that area. And that, though, is bringing the healing properties that are in your blood to focus on the area that
you've stung. And those areas tend to be the areas that hurt the most, is typically how Charlie Maas would do it, which he explains in his book, A Health and the Honey Bee, I think it's called. Basically, he would press all around the joint, just bothering a person, and find the places that hurt the most, and with a pen, you know, just a little dot on that spot, so he knew where
to apply the sting. And you apply the ice to it first to numb it, and then he would reach into a jar that he collected some bees in with a pair of forceps, and grab the bee and touch the tip of the abdomen, tune that spot, so the bee would deposit its stinger. in the skin and then leave it there for a good 10 minutes or so to allow all the venom to be deposited into the site. And one of the things that researchers have found is that the bee venom stimulates the
body's production of cortisol. Cortisol is the natural version of cortisone, which is the drug that's patented. and provided to people who have pain from arthritis, for example. It helps to relieve that pain. Well, cortisol does that naturally. That's the body's version. The problem is the cortisone shot that you get, that chemical is not exactly the same formulation as the cortisol
that your body produces. And when you get lots of these cortisone shots over a long period of time, it can cause real bad problems with the liver. and it could potentially kill you after a long period of time. But you don't get those kind of side effects with the cortisol that your body produces, because it is totally in harmony with your body. Your body made it. It's meant to be there. The production of cortisol by the body, though, has been found to require a block
of vitamin C and B vitamins. And so people that are going to be using bee stings for healing, especially pain treatment, try to reduce pain, symptoms, it's a good idea to be taking one to two thousand milligrams of vitamin C and a multi -B complex that has all the B vitamins in it. Take one of those about an hour or so before you get stung so that your body has all the raw materials it needs to produce the maximum amount of cortisol so you can get the best benefit.
Okay, I just learned two things because I've tried this a little bit. First of all, I thought you had to go for the full pain and I haven't done the ice cube thing, which seems like a super good idea. And second is the BNC vitamin. So thank you for that. There's a lot more to it too, which is why I recommend people get in touch with the American Apitherapy Society. You know,
you got to take basic precautions. It's a good idea to have an EpiPen on hand because even though it's a true life -threatening Allergy, hyperallergic response to bee venom is very rare in the population. It could potentially happen. It's good to have an idea, have an epinephrine injector pen handy in case you go into anaphylactic shock, which is a potential side effect from getting bee stings. But also, because of the swelling that's involved, if you're going to sting your hands or something,
remove your jewelry first. Take off your rings. Don't wear those things because if your fingers swell up in that... Ring is constricting it could cut off the blood supply and cause problems common sense. Sorry to laugh such a good good good advice
there Thank you Ross. Hey, we're running out of time any last thoughts on this whole topic before I let you go Well, if I said in the beginning, you know everything from the beehive is so incredibly healing for the world and that's why I'm really distressed that how Bad the honeybees are suffering these days and how difficult it is and how much of a challenge beekeepers are having trying to keep the bees alive. We're not being the kind of stewards for this incredible world that was
inherited, that we should be. One of the things that I've learned from the bees is that it takes, they estimate, a honeybee working its entire life gathering nectar to produce honey can produce about one -twelfth of a teaspoon. of honey. So 12 bees working their whole lifetime can produce one teaspoon of honey that you get to enjoy in your coffee or your tea. But yet to get through an entire year, such as in a place, a cold place, especially like Vermont, the bees need 150 to
200 pounds of honey. And yet the bee itself can only gather a twelfth of a teaspoon. that it seems so insignificant and yet the honeybee doesn't fall for the illusion that what they do is insignificant, right? The bee is going to do what it can do and it counts on all its other hive mates to do what they can do and together they can make
miracles happen. Hundreds of pounds of honey and so when people look at the challenges that we are being faced with today and all so many different areas from the the climate and the environment and the economic system and our government system and health care and energy and education and everything often it can feel overwhelming but the reality is everything you do can have an effect be a power of one person can make a difference especially when it's combined with
millions if not billions of other people's operas. And so that gives me a lot of inspiration to not give up and to do what I can every day and do it now. The time has come for us to all start doing what we know needs to be done and stop putting things off or thinking someone else is going to take care of things. We need to start taking action ourselves to create the world we want and be the change we want to see. So thank
you, Eric, for doing what you do. You've just brought up so many things that we love about honey bees, and that's what this show is all about. And thank you very much, Ross. I appreciate your time. You're welcome. Take care. Thanks again for joining us here on Bee Love Beekeeping, presented by Man Lake. Another great place for more information on everything related to this podcast is in our email newsletter. You can sign
up for it for free at BeLoveBekeeping .com. And remember, if you're not just in it for the honey or the money, you're in it for the love. See you next week.